Among 14 dentists across state who have filed lawsuit against DentalWorks company

By Michael Barrett

Published: Sunday, March 24, 2013 at 05:22 PM.

Two Gastonia dentists are among 14 across North Carolina who have filed a lawsuit against a national dental care chain they are affiliated with.

Dr. Richard Dunning and Dr. Jotinder Johal are both partners at DentalWorks, located in the Franklin Square shopping center. A spokeswoman for them said Wednesday she is unsure of how many patients they serve, but they will continue to do business as usual at the Gastonia dental office while the legal issues are resolved.

“The good news about all this is that patients should not see any impact at all,” said Debbie Elliott of Talk Inc., who has been hired by the 14 dentists to handle public relations while the lawsuit is resolved. “They are continuing to provide care.”

DentalWorks bills itself as a company that provides only management services — along with the name recognition of a chain — to the dental practices it partners with. But Dunning, Johal and their fellow plaintiffs have accused the company of encouraging staff to improperly diagnose patients, so they could bill them for more expensive procedures.

A second lawsuit against DentalWorks, filed by the N.C. State Board of Dental Examiners, makes some of the same claims. It also alleges that DentalWorks lied about its operations “to give the false and deceptive appearance that the dental practices are operating lawfully,” according to court documents.

North Carolina law allows only dentists to own, manage or control a dental practice. The state dental board’s lawsuit asserts that DentalWorks maintained two sets of financial records to conceal the reality that it owns and operates its North Carolina locations as a chain, therefore collecting the profits.

DentalWorks is the brand name of DentalOne Partners Inc., a national dental company operating in strip malls and retail centers across 14 states. It allows its dentists to buy into limited-liability corporations that manage dental practices. When those ownership arrangements first materialized in 2003, the point was to allow dentists to focus on patients, while DentalWorks managed other aspects of the business.

Two Gastonia dentists are among 14 across North Carolina who have filed a lawsuit against a national dental care chain they are affiliated with.

Dr. Richard Dunning and Dr. Jotinder Johal are both partners at DentalWorks, located in the Franklin Square shopping center. A spokeswoman for them said Wednesday she is unsure of how many patients they serve, but they will continue to do business as usual at the Gastonia dental office while the legal issues are resolved.

“The good news about all this is that patients should not see any impact at all,” said Debbie Elliott of Talk Inc., who has been hired by the 14 dentists to handle public relations while the lawsuit is resolved. “They are continuing to provide care.”

DentalWorks bills itself as a company that provides only management services — along with the name recognition of a chain — to the dental practices it partners with. But Dunning, Johal and their fellow plaintiffs have accused the company of encouraging staff to improperly diagnose patients, so they could bill them for more expensive procedures.

A second lawsuit against DentalWorks, filed by the N.C. State Board of Dental Examiners, makes some of the same claims. It also alleges that DentalWorks lied about its operations “to give the false and deceptive appearance that the dental practices are operating lawfully,” according to court documents.

North Carolina law allows only dentists to own, manage or control a dental practice. The state dental board’s lawsuit asserts that DentalWorks maintained two sets of financial records to conceal the reality that it owns and operates its North Carolina locations as a chain, therefore collecting the profits.

DentalWorks is the brand name of DentalOne Partners Inc., a national dental company operating in strip malls and retail centers across 14 states. It allows its dentists to buy into limited-liability corporations that manage dental practices. When those ownership arrangements first materialized in 2003, the point was to allow dentists to focus on patients, while DentalWorks managed other aspects of the business.

The state dental board’s lawsuit said DentalWorks pushed its dentists since at least 2008 to aggressively diagnose gum disease, treat it with a procedure called scaling and root planning, and prescribe a drug the company was pushing in coordination with the drug-maker. The company even encouraged hygienists to diagnose and treat the ailment, creating “an incentive to misdiagnose patients with periodontal disease, including documenting inaccurate clinical information,” the lawsuit said.

The result was unnecessary treatments and bills, the dental board said.

Elliott said anyone with questions about procedures they had done at DentalWorks in Gastonia should go to Dunning or Johal and ask them directly. But she pointed out they are among the 14 dentists who not only filed a lawsuit, but reported what they knew to the state dental board, indicating they did not cooperate with DentalWorks’ attempts to influence.

“Trying to influence care and influencing care are two very different things,” Elliott said. “The dentists here are the patient advocates.
“Their primary concern now is they want to continue operating their practice and not let this be disruptive to their patients.”

You can reach Michael Barrett at 704-869-1826 or twitter.com/GazetteMike. The Associated Press contributed to this report.